O'Connell carries Cougars past Whippets into quarters

Photos by Tom Kelly IV
West's (15) shoots and scores on this diving attempt over East's goalie. The goal was taken away for a violation, during the Downingtown East vs Downingtown West boys lacrosse game, Thursday May 16, 2013.

DOWNINGTOWN – It’s rarely pretty when Downingtown East and Downingtown West meet, regardless of the sport.

It certainly wasn’t Thursday night, when the Cougars and Whippets got together for a second-round District 1 boys lacrosse contest that had a little bit of everything. Two archrivals locked in combat under the lights. Win-or-go-home stakes. An assist by a goalie, almost a quarter’s worth of penalty minutes, and plenty of friendly chatter between hostile sidelines. Yes, this one had it all. In the end, Downingtown East had Brandyn O’Connell, and that was all that mattered.

The electrifying senior attack poured in five goals and handed out four assists, putting his stamp on seemingly every possession and leading the second-seeded Cougars to a 12-9 victory on a muggy night at West’s DiSerafino Stadium. Ian Riehl and Nathan Wingate added two goals apiece for East, which advanced to take on 10th-seeded and fellow Ches-Mont co-champion Avon Grove in Saturday’s quarterfinals, set for 10 a.m. at Harriton. Thanks to O’Connell’s heroics, East finds itself a win away from a berth in the state playoffs.

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“I think he’s the MVP of the league,” East coach Todd Cliggett said of the Hofstra-bound star. “He definitely should be an All-American. He’s one of the best players I’ve ever coached. He just takes over games.”

That was certainly the case on Thursday. Against the Whippets (10-10), a squad much better than its record and No. 18 seed, O’Connell was everywhere, running the Cougars’ offense to perfection from behind the net. The senior willed East into the lead against its bitter rival with an astonishing third-quarter burst, then made sure the Cougars kept it with plenty of key plays down the stretch of a game that lasted nearly two hours and ended with both teams’ energy reserves reading ‘empty.’

“Any time you play a rival school it’s always going to be a dogfight,” O’Connell said. “After the last time I played them I wanted to step my game up…I just gave it my all, and we came out victorious.”

O’Connell had a hand in three quarters of East’s goals, and all of its winning formula. After Sean Sauder went coast-to-coast and finished to pull the Whippets into a 5-5 tie early in the second half, O’Connell put his dazzling skillset into overdrive. First, he set up Kevin Meakim for an easy finish with a perfectly placed pass over the top of West’s bunched-up defense, Meakim’s goal giving the Cougars the lead right back. Then came a play that dropped the collective jaw of the capacity crowd.

With Kyle Lauletta working the perimeter, O’Connell worked his way towards the crease, expecting to receive a pass from his senior running mate. Instead, Lauletta fired a shot across the West goal, only to see Whippets goalie Alex Ataifar snare it in mid-air with a quick reflex save. For a split second, it looked like a lost opportunity, at least before the ball came out of Ataifar’s stick, rising into the air and dangling freely outside the crease. That’s when O’Connell swooped in, snaring the rebound in mid-air and putting it past Ataifar in one motion, putting the Cougars ahead, 7-5, and laying claim to the season’s best goal in the short span of one full-extension highlight.

“I saw Lauletta going to the alley to dodge, and he did a right-to-left split,” O’Connell explained. “I actually thought I was open, so I went to backdoor cut and looked for the pass, but Kyle has a good shot…The goalie couldn’t catch it and I just came up with the rebound.”

Tyler Keen (three goals) brought the Whippets back to within one with a bouncing goal two minutes later, but O’Connell scored back-to-back goals in a 68-second span to make it 9-6. The Whippets never really threatened after that. O’Connell assisted on tallies by Wingate and Lucas Iacovino as East took a 12-7 lead in the fourth, then forced a turnover with an all-out dive in the defensive end to stop a promising transition opportunity for West with a minute left to seal the Cougars’ spot in the quarters.

“I told him it was the best I’ve ever seen him play,” said Lauletta, who finished with a goal and an assist of his own. “I’ve been with him for four years and I think that was the best single performance I’ve seen. He was doing everything.”

Matt Logan matched Keen with three goals for West, including one on a perfect transition pass from Ataifar late in the third that brought the Whippets to within 9-7. West, however, quickly lost all of its momentum when three Whippets were called for simultaneous penalties a mere 12 seconds later, giving East a three-man advantage. Though West somehow escaped unscathed, O’Connell’s pass sailing out of bounds, the Whippets needed the next several minutes to recover back to even strength, and Ian Riehl’s goal with nine minutes left essentially put their upset hopes on ice. When the dust settled, West was hit with 7 minutes and 30 seconds worth of penalties to just four for the Cougars.

“Whenever there’s a game of this magnitude and this excitement, there’s always going to be mistakes,” Lauletta said. “We didn’t dwell on our mistakes, and we came out firing. It was a great win.”

The Cougars will have to come out firing again on Saturday, when they meet a red-hot Avon Grove squad fresh off an 11-4 pasting of Central League powerhouse Ridley that looks as potent as anyone. But with 13 wins in 14 games since a 2-5 start to the season, East does too, and the Cougars expect nothing less than an all-out war with a state berth on the line.

“It’s going to be a tough one, just like tonight and from here on out,” Cliggett said. “There’s so much parity in the state that it’s going to be tough every game. There’s no lay-ups.

“The kids have worked their tails off. We started off 2-5, had a lot of bumps in the road, couldn’t figure out who we were as a team. After the first few weeks we came together. It’s awesome.”